In the moment you find yourself stressed, tense, worried, irritable, or angry -- when you find yourself in a negative state, thinking about what to do about your negativity -- all you have to do to break free is realize that you're in the wrong place. Don't think about what to do with where you are. Admit to yourself you're in the wrong place, and then... just don't go there.

You may, at any moment that you wish, become aware of yourself sufficiently enough to know where you are inwardly. When you find yourself living a resentment over again, all you have to do is see that you're surrounded by thoughts and feelings that were produced by your resistance to a remembered event. That's all you have to do. Who made you remember what you now wish hadn't happened to you? Who made you picture the person you resent? Who brought up the failure from your past? Who did any of that in the moment you're sitting by yourself, or driving in your car, or eating your cup of coffee.
The answer is something inside of you that is always trying to drag you into a place where it assumes power over you. That's who! And it's not a who, it's a what. It's not a you. Don't judge yourself!

Don't condemn yourself for these parts that belong to an aspect of a still unconscious nature.

Your aim is to make it conscious; to bring this light into yourself so thoroughly that what now acts upon you will be unable to produce the punishment it does because it gets you into the world where nothing good can happen because you have gone into the wrong place.

Just don't go there. Can you remember that? Thinking about whatever it is that you wish wasn't happening serves only to add mass to your misery.

The problem is, when we get into pain, our pain immediately gives us the reasons why we're there. The reasons for being in pain are the wrong place to be. Thinking about our reasons for why we're unhappy is the wrong place to be. It's part of our unhappiness; it's not the solution to it.

We have the capacity to stop making ourselves powerless by waking up to having put ourselves where our powers are stolen from us. We each have ample opportunities every day to come wide-awake, fully back to ourselves, realize we're being dragged down, and say: "Hold on a moment. This isn't a good place for me to be." Then, we can step out of that world of time, which is what thought is.

We can step out of that world of tribulation, into the now, because the presence moment is the essence of all that makes a human being whole, healthy, and happy. It is where love exists, and where fear cannot dwell.

Guy Finley is the best-selling author of more than 40 books and audio albums on self-realization. He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for spiritual development located in southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. For more information visit www.guyfinley.org.